


REVENGE!

by Karl5



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karl5/pseuds/Karl5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wolverine #15<br/>While Logan climbs the mountain to jump off yet again, he is visited by Kurt’s spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	REVENGE!

REVENGE!

“Logan, mein Freund and my lover, you must stop this! Although it is possible to take revenge upon yourself, it accomplishes nothing.”

As I started up the mountain once again, he was there just above me, perched precariously on a rocky ledge.

“Go away, Elf. I don’t wanna hear about it.”

He gave a very audible sigh and shook his head. “If you hadn’t been so dead set on revenge, this never vould have happened to you.”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

I was next to him by now, clawing my way up the cliff face.

“Obviously, you do not know it vell enough,” he retorted.

“Go away, Kurt. You’re dead. You’re not real.”

“I am at least as real as the ones whose laughter you are trying to silence.”

“I don’t need to hear a sermon from something that’s just a figment of my imagination.”

I was above him now, throwing my words spitefully back over one shoulder.

I figured I’d just leave him behind if I kept on going, but when I reached up, groping with bleeding fingers for my next handhold, there he was, clinging to the rock face just the way he’d been able to hold onto walls while he was alive.

“Damn it, I told you to get lost!”

“You are the one who is lost, and you know it.” He frowned down at me. “Vhy do you never go to varmer climates vhen you seek to retreat from the vorld? I am freezing my tail off underneath this verdammte vhite robe.”

“Oh, so now you’re gonna complain about the weather, huh? If ya don’t like it here, buddy, why don’t ya just go to Hell? It’s plenty warm there. I can tell you that from my own experience. Of course, the company’s not too great, but you’ll be right at home with all the other demons.”

“You cannot insult me so easily, Logan. I know you too vell.”

I stopped climbing for a moment and looked him right in the eye. “Yeah, and I know you too well also. That one hit home. Don’t try to deny it. Now go away and leave me in peace.”

“If you vere truly at peace, I vould not be here.”

Again I left him behind, hoping he might take the hint this time. Nope. There he was off to my right side, climbing along with me. Snow began to fall, as it usually did when I’d reach this height. Normally, I enjoy snow, but now all it did was make things slippery.

“Returning your children’s bodies to their mothers as you did vas a good thing, and a more than sufficient penance for killing them. They vere hardly innocent bystanders, you know.”

“It wasn’t their fault. They were brainwashed, distorted and destroyed by the Red Right Hand.”

“As you vere by Veapon X. Yet you hold yourself accountable for all your actions regardless. Vhen your children attacked you, you told them they didn’t have to do that, didn’t you? In fact, you told them tvice to just valk away. They chose not to. The only other possibilities open to you after that vere to fight them to the death, give up your search for revenge and valk avay yourself, or fight and allow them to kill you. If you had known they vere your children, which vould you have chosen?”

That stopped me short. “I – I don’t know.”

“The Red Right Hand only took the revenge that they felt vas their due, just as you chose to do after you returned from Hell. You could have stayed vith the ones who loved you and risked their lives to save you. You could have spared Mystique, who vas instrumental in helping you. Instead, I saw you write your reaction to vhat they had done on the vall with your own right hand, red with blood, and it vas the same as theirs.”

“They started it. They killed innocent people.”

“And vere you innocent of vhat happened to some of them? Perhaps. Vere any of them innocent, or at least repentant for vhat they had done to you? Did anyone on either side even attempt to find out? No. Your answer vas the same as theirs: blood and death.”

I began climbing again. “They came after me first and sent me to Hell. Do you think I enjoyed that?”

“Of course not! But you escaped and regained control of your body, vith the help of your friends. Myself included, if I may be permitted to remind you of that.”

His voice was tightly controlled, but I could tell he was angry by the way his tail swished stiffly from side to side. Tough shit! “And I appreciate that, Kurt. I only did what I had to, in order to get back at them.”

He was still there, keeping pace with me as I clawed my way upward. There wasn’t too much further to go.

“Revenge breeds only more revenge. Somevhere along the line, ve must stop this. Somevhere, somehow, humanity must turn aside to a different path, if ve are not all to go down in killing and in blood.”

I turned to him and growled. “Killing is what I do, darlin’. You know that. You’ve always known that. Why are you so intent on giving me grief over it now?”

That stopped him. Good! I could get on with my climbing without his interference. This was hard enough without having to argue ethics at the same time. 

“Perhaps because you have been given a chance to change, but do not seem to be taking it,” he answered at last.

“Not bloody likely!” Damn! He was at it again.

Snow blew around us as the wind picked up. It didn’t slow him down any, but it whipped that silly white robe all over the place. I tried to ignore the fact that he had nothing on underneath it.

“Do you not recall Jean’s last vords to you, when we drove the demons out of your mind?”

I froze where I was, remembering that beloved voice inside my head: “Live, Logan, and don’t look back. Let go your rage. Let go your thirst for revenge. The things of hell have no hold on you anymore. The only demons who can threaten you now are your own.”

“Yeah, I remember all right, Elf. It’s just not somethin’ I can do, OK? Go away.”

I extended the claws on my right hand and took a half-hearted swipe at him. All he did was skitter slightly out of range and shake his head in disgust.

“Has it never occurred to you that there are other uses for your claws besides slashing human flesh?”

“Like for instance --?”

“Cutting the chains that bind people in servitude. Tearing down the valls that keep people apart. Ripping to shreds lies, deceit, and fraud.”

“That’s all metaphorical, Elf.”

“Ja, das weiss ich, mein Schatz. But is it any the less true even so?”

“No, I guess not.” I resumed my climb. The summit was in sight by now, between curtains of swirling snow. Maybe he’d go away when I reached the top. “Leave it to you to say such things.”

“Sometimes I think that’s vhy ve vere together: so that I could say such things to you, and you vould listen.”

“I wish I thought you were right, Kurt. I truly do.”

“I am German. Ve are alvays right.” The over-emphasis on his accent along with the ironic smile on his face told me he wasn’t serious about that.

“Ha! Without tryin’ very hard, I can think of a few occasions when you folks weren’t right at all. And I’m sure you could too,” I told him wryly.

“Vell, yes. But ve prefer to think ve are alvays right, even so.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to smile too.

“C’mon, Elf. Give me a break. Leave me alone to get on with this,” I told him, reaching a hand up over the top of the cliff and pulling myself up. Maybe he couldn’t follow me that far. 

As I rose to my feet, I heard the characteristic bamf that happens when he teleports, and then he was on my back, arms, legs and tail all wrapped around me.

“Stop it!”

“You used to like it vhen I did this to you.” He ran the tip of his tail provocatively over the front of my ragged jeans.

“Kurt, please! Don’t!” He ignored me, so I pushed his tail away. “Please, darlin’! Don’t interfere. I need to do this. It’s the only relief I can get.”

“That is not true.”

“Yeah, it is, and you know it perfectly well.”

He literally crawled around my body, so that he was in front of me, while still clinging tightly against me. His eyes blazed into mine, with that eerie golden emptiness I knew so well.

I couldn’t help it. I sank down cross-legged onto the ground, so that he landed in my lap, still wrapped around me. I knew he wasn’t really there, he couldn’t be, but it felt so good to have his body close to me again.

He held my head against his chest and kissed my unkempt and windblown hair, like a mother comforting her child.

“Logan, you may not realize it, but there are people who look up to you, who follow vhat you do and are inspired by you.”

“Bullshit! Ain’t no one payin’ attention to me. Why should they? Mutants are a dime a dozen these days. There’s nothin’ special about me.”

“Not because you are a mutant, mein Freund. Because you are a hero.”

“Some hero I am.” I shook my head. “Naw, Elf. At best, I’m a killer, a psychopathic killer.”

His arms tightened around me. “You are an archetype. You embody the struggle of a man to rise above the part of himself that is and alvays shall be a ravening animal. Vhen you vin that battle, you inspire others to turn aside from the animal that devours their own hearts and tempts them to give in to rage and hatred.”

“Yeah, sure. And when I lose?”

“Vhen you lose, it reminds them of how many times they themselves have failed and they grieve for you.”

“Ha! Somehow I just don’t think so. Besides, the average guy, or gal for that matter, doesn’t have to deal with the shit I’ve got inside my head.”

“You think not? Don’t you realize that there is a selfish raging monster inside all of us, ready to be let loose at the first opportunity? You are not unique in that. How about the young soldier returning from a var trying to come to terms with some of the things he or she may have done? Or the ordinary teen-ager, whose developing body makes him crazy vith new and confusing desires, desires he vants desperately to fulfill regardless of the consequences to others? And I don’t mean just the boys. You are all of those things, writ large. You fight their own battles, albeit on a larger canvas, for you have the strength and the power to do vhat they can only imagine.”

“The claws, Elf. I’ve also got the claws.” I extended them, just to remind him. Even with my arms wrapped around him, he would be able to see the gleaming blades at the edges of his vision. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if I plunged them into his body. Would that make him go away and leave me alone, or would they just go right through him, like the ghost he must surely be?

“Come off it, Kurt,” I said, almost gently. “Next you’ll be tryin’ to tell me that kids take me as a role model.”

“Vhy not? There vere always young mutants at the School who looked up to you. Or didn’t you notice? Perhaps you should re-open it again. You are a good teacher, you know.”

I thought about that for a minute, while he just sat there quietly in my lap.

“Aw right, I’ll grant you that maybe I am that archetype thing. But that means you are too, doesn’t it?”

“Nein,” he replied, almost sorrowfully. “I’m not as famous as you are and I don’t do nearly as much as you do. No one pays that much attention to me.” I felt him shrug, still holding me in his arms. “Besides, I’m dead. Who cares about a dead hero?”

“Stop with the humility, pal. You’ve always been a better man than I am, and certainly more worthy of imitation, dead or alive. So what kind of an archetype are you? What do you represent?”

He let go of me and leaned back far enough that we could see each other’s faces. He grinned. “Vhat else could I be, Logan? You yourself named me for vhat I vas a long time ago. You called me Misfit, and that is vhat I am: the ultimate misfit. Someone who is so very different that he cannot by any means disguise vhat he is, short of turning himself into something he is not, as I once did vith the image inducer.”

I gave him a snort of amusement. “I suppose ya could come up with somthin’ for all the other X-Men too, couldn’t ya?”

“I suppose I could, if I thought about it for a vhile.”

“Yer crazy, Elf.”

“Ja, that may vell be so. But I am not the one jumping off of mountains, am I now?”

“No. You’re just the one who got himself killed, that’s all.”

The silence stretched between us for several long minutes. I saw a flake of snow land on his face, bright white against dark blue. It melted as I watched and ran down his cheek like a tear.

I rose abruptly to my feet, with him still clinging to me like some kind of demented grapevine. 

“Enough of this! You aren’t really here. You can’t be talkin’ to me. I’m hallucinating. Time to get on with what I’m doing.”

I took a few steps toward the edge of the cliff. But even that wasn’t enough to silence him.

“If you really vant to die, mein Freund, you know how to do it. There’s a very large ocean not too far from here. Take a small boat out far enough so that you can’t svim back and sink it. You’ll drown, the adamantium in your bones eventually dragging you down. It’s that simple. You have told me so yourself.”

“How could you say that to me?” I demanded, feeling the rage rise into my mind. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours, Logan. Alvays yours.”

I leaned over the edge. “Go away, Kurt. I’m gonna jump.”

“Very vell. I vill fall vith you.”

“All right, you motherfucker! If you’re that stupid, I’ll take you with me!” I grasped him tighter and threw us both forward and into the air, expecting him to teleport away now that I had called his bluff.

All during that long fall, his body was pressed against me. Somehow, he even managed to twist us around so that he was underneath me each time we hit anything, even when we landed at the bottom. But that didn’t matter. We hit hard enough to have killed us both.

Instead of the merciful emptiness I had hoped for, there was a sort of explosion in my head, as if an intense light had cracked open my skull and shone down into the morass of unrelieved pain, guilt, and shame. Again, the mocking laughter of the Devil rang through my mind. 

Then that laughter was blessedly silenced by a soundless chord of swelling majesty so sweet I could feel it in every part of my body, even my adamantium bones. I don’t know any better way to describe this feeling except as being surrounded and immersed in glory. It only lasted a few moments, but it was the most intense pleasure I have ever felt, more incredible than even the best orgasm.

Consciousness seeped back into me, as I endured the long-familiar agony of my broken body healing itself. I groaned and slitted my eyes open. Kurt was still in my arms, his white robe torn almost to shreds but his body warm against mine. His eyes burned with yellow fire as he brought his face down towards me. His lips touched mine, gently at first, then more demanding. My mouth opened to him, and I tasted an echo of that blazing ecstasy that had so briefly been mine as his love seemed to flow into me, dulling my pain and making everything right.

It lasted only as long as his kiss. When his mouth left mine, that beautiful feeling left with it.

I could have cried, or begged him to continue. I pulled him closer, seeking his lips again, but he shook his head. 

“No, Logan. Go back to those who love you.”

I pushed him away in despair, angry that he would not give me what I wanted. “You loved me,” I snarled. “And what did that get you?”

“Unending joy, mein Freund.”

A distant look came into his eyes. I saw him glance up at the heavy clouds above us, then sadness filled his expression.

“I cannot stay here forever. I must return now. Please, if you can do nothing else, think about vhat I have said to you.”

In a puff of blue smoke, he was gone. Darkness filled my heart, where his love had burned so brightly just a moment before. Once more I heard the laughter of my tormentors. Snowflakes fell on my face, melting and mercifully washing away my broken tears.

“OK, Elf,” I murmured to the falling snow. “I’ll think about it. I owe you that, and more.”

I picked myself up and started to climb the mountain again.

 

GERMAN TRANSLATION

Ja, das weiss ich. Yes, I know that.

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR’S NOTE:  
> For any of my readers who enjoy stories involving male/male sex in general, I’ve started a series of ebooks on Amazon that is not fanfiction. It doesn’t involve Logan, Kurt, or any other superheroes, but my two main characters are heroes of a more everyday kind, each in his own way. You can find out more about it at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J75NJIE
> 
>    
> Now that the original Kurt Wagner has returned from the dead, I've recently posted a new story about him  
> TO WALK AWAY FROM PARADISE Amazing X-Men: Quest for Nightcrawler #1-5  
> At the end of this series, we left Kurt sitting on the roof agonizing about having lost his soul. What if Logan didn’t leave him there alone after all?  
> (If you haven’t read my Kurt Darkholme series, some of the references to past happenings in this story may be confusing.)
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/1856817


End file.
